


ephemeral

by orphan_account



Series: put a light in a home (itll haunt you just the same) [1]
Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Animal Death, Bad Parenting, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Feral Behavior, Foster Care, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25422544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: ' ephemeral 'adjective"lasting for a very short time."For the first time in his short life, he felt safe. He felt happy.So, of course, it couldn't last. When had happiness ever been for him?
Series: put a light in a home (itll haunt you just the same) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1841425
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	ephemeral

**Author's Note:**

> yeah. this is gonna be a full ass series. maybe. comment if you wanna see more. im gonna write it anyway.

_ Drusselstien, 1984 _

At the tender age of six and a half, Heinz Doofenshmirtz was taken by his father, out into the surrounding forests. Of course, Heinz was excited. His father never wanted to do anything with him! Especially not without  _ Roger.  _

But here he was! He was trotting along at his father's heels, smiling a big smile and saying nothing, just in case. Nobody liked it when he talked, especially not his father. So Heinz stayed quiet and struggled to keep up - he hadn't yet inherited his father's height nor his build. 

They had been walking for around two hours when his father finally stopped him, looked around, and then sat him on a tree stump and told him to not move until he came back. Heinz nodded eagerly, got comfortable, and waited. 

And his father never came back. 

So Heinz waited, and waited, and eventually fell asleep there, curled up on a stump, deep in the forests surrounding his home. When he woke up, it was to something warm and slightly damp nudging his face. He sniffled and blinked his eyes open. 

There was a cat sitting next to the tree stump he had fallen asleep on, which was what had woken him. It - she - had a spotted pelt and warm brown eyes, and Heinz immediately reached out and gently stroked her forehead. She purred at him and nudged against his hand, and he laughed softly. There were others around too, a bigger one and two smaller ones, and he slipped off of his stump to stand next to them. 

"Hello," He said, and the cat's ears twitched. She mrowed, and Heinz nodded as if he understood. She nudged his side, and then started off, looking back as if to ask if he was coming. Heinz hurried to catch up, leaving the stump - and his family - behind. 

\---

Heinz learned a lot with Mutti und Vati Ozelot. They taught him and their two cubs to hunt, to scent, to find their way home even in the dense greenery of the forest. He learned what each growl and chirp and meow meant, and how to make them with his inadequate human throat. He fell asleep in a pile of warm fur each morning, all five of them purring softly to reassure each other all was safe. 

A long time passed this way, with Heinz outgrowing what remained of his clothes and having to get rid of the rags. He allowed Mutti Ozelot to groom him, played with his siblings - who he loved far more than he'd ever even liked Roger - and learnt how to hunt and wait and be patient from Vati Ozelot. His verbal skills - which hadn't been all that developed anyway, since he used to only talk to himself - faded away, replaced instead with the chirps and mrows of ocelot language. 

With them, he never went hungry. There was always enough to eat, always. Neither of his siblings got more or less food than he did. For the first time in his short life, he felt safe. He felt  _ happy.  _

So, of course, it couldn't last. When had happiness ever been for him? 

Three days shy of his eleventh birthday, when he'd been with the ocelots for five years, a hunting party came across his tracks. He'd grown up a lot since his father left him in the woods. He was taller now, stronger from all that time hunting and walking and play-fighting with his brother and sister, and his hair was long and untamed. It would be hell to brush it out, although of course Heinz didn't think of such things. He was still very clever, and he still would, in time, teach himself English and such. At the moment, though, his only thought was sunning himself in a patch of grass and watching as Mutti groomed his brother, who had gotten burrs all over his fur. 

This brother, of course, wasn't the same one he'd had when he'd first been found. Those two siblings had moved on a while ago, and Mutti had had another litter, although she seemed to sense that Heinz wasn't ready to move on quite yet. 

He yawned, stretching out, and then rolled onto his other side, enjoying the feeling of grass against his skin. The sun was warm, and Heinz was content. He heard Vati call in a yowl, and mrowed back to reassure him all was fine. After releasing his brother, Mutti trotted over to him and licked his hair a few times before curling up next to him. He purred to her, rattly and unusual, and she purred back.

Moments after Mutti laid next to him, there was a screaming yowl. Vati. Heinz shot up, as did Mutti, and she tried to herd all of them to the den, him and his two brothers, but before she could, a shot rang out, and one of the kits fell. Another shot, and the other kit dropped Mutti screamed with grief and ran to them, licking their corpses and trying to get them to rise. Heinz saw the man before she did, and launched himself, fighting tooth and nail like his family had taught him. 

But, for all he had been raised by wildcats, Heinz was still a boy just shy of eleven, fighting a grown man. He turned and watched just as they pinned Mutti down and slit her throat. Her blood flowed over the two dead kits, and Heinz screamed and thrashed with all his might, trying to free himself and go to them. His family. Tears ran hot down his cheeks, snot pooled on his upper lip, and he howled.

They wrapped him in a blanket and set him in the cart. He was surrounded by men who smelt strange and acted strange, and every time he saw one of them looking at him, he bared his teeth. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Mutti's dead green eyes staring blankly. Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear Vati's yowling scream. 

All the fight had gone out of him now, and he fell asleep leaning against the side of the cart, which felt somehow… Familiar. 

When he woke up, he hissed instinctively, not recognising where he was or what he was doing there. One of the men had gently scooped him up and was now scratching through Heinz's long, knotted hair, making him purr softly and relax into the touch. 

Once he was settled, he was passed into someone else's arms. These arms were much smaller, and smelled funny. He sneezed and shook his head, cracking open one eye. All he could see was grass and sky and long, dark hair. None of that seemed important. 

-

_ Germany, 1989  _

In all of her years as a social worker, Sofia Becker had never,  _ never _ seen a case quite like this one. She'd been called to look at the Doofenschmirtz family, because of something that seemed trivial at the time. Roger, their son, had mentioned something about a  _ brother,  _ an older brother, although there was no other Doofenschmirtz registered to that school or any other in the area. 

She visited, and though she found nothing out of place, something niggled at the back of her mind for days. So she went for a follow up visit, and Roger took her up to see 'Heinz's bedroom', which was… Sad. She understood that the Doofenschmirtz family had little money, but both Roger's bedroom and the parents' were well cared for, clean, and comfortable. This one was not. There was a dirty mattress on the floor in the corner, a few science books, and a half-finished little robot thing. 

Without thinking, she had confronted the elder Doofenshmirtz, and he had, haltingly, told her the story of his eldest son, the son he had never wanted. The son he had abandoned. He had finished his speech with, "And if we're lucky, he gave up and died a long time ago." 

Sofia had never been so horrified. She almost dropped the case entirely for one of her colleagues to pick up, but she thought of that tiny room, those well-worn books, that little robot, and she steeled her resolve. 

Six months later, she had to admit she was more looking for a body than a child. Though the forests surrounding Drusselstien were thick, they were narrow. There wasn't much to them. Of course, his body could have been carried away by predators, but she held out hope. 

While it snowed outside, she thought of a boy huddled under a tree, shivering and crying. She couldn't have known that Heinz was curled up in his den, nestled between Mutti and his two brothers. 

When she got a call in mid-March of 1990, she assumed it was a different child. But how many children were taken out into the woods and left there? She drove a little past the speed limit and parked outside the thin thatch of trees, where she waited for almost an hour. Just as she was about to leave, she heard voices and footsteps. Barely daring to hope, she held her breath. 

A man emerged from the trees, carrying a boy in his arms. The boy was wrapped in a blanket, and had matted brown hair. His eyes were closed, but he seemed… Healthy. In fact, he seemed healthier than the photograph she had gotten from Roger. That child had been thin, with sallow cheeks and dull eyes. This boy was healthy, with muscle on his arms and legs and, though his hair was matted, it looked healthy. 

They  _ were  _ the same child, though. It was undeniable. 

Gently, the man deposited the boy -  _ Heinz  _ \- into her arms. He was heavy, but not so much so that she couldn't carry him. When he sneezed, she almost dropped him, and looked down to see one bright blue eye examining his surroundings. Apparently, he didn't see anything of interest, because he shut them again, snuggling into her arms. 

"Careful," The man said to her. "He's got a hell of a bite on 'im." 

She frowned, and he shrugged and turned to go back to his hunting party. 

Looking down at the boy she had spent almost a year trying to find, she swore then and there never to let anything else happen to him. Even if it meant she had to die to do it. 

-

_ Germany, 1995  _

Sofia Becker ought to have retired a year ago. The reason she hadn't was, of course, sitting in front of her, scowling, his arms crossed over his chest. 

Getting Heinz rehabilitated to human life again had actually been quite easy. He'd let her cut his hair, dress him in clothes that fit, and even ate fairly neatly, although not with a knife and fork. He had been a quiet child, and had grown into a quiet teenager. Though, of course, not many foster families in Germany could handle Heinz.

He wasn't a  _ bad  _ kid, exactly. He was just… Stubborn. And that wasn't something she begrudged him for. Of course not. That wasn't to say it wouldn't be easier if he would just be a little more forgiving.

"Heinz," She said, exasperated, and he scowled at her, flashing teeth. Some things were still leftover from his time with the ocelots, but that certainly wasn't something she judged him for. "You're fifteen now. Almost a man. This is your tenth foster placement." 

"It wasn't my fault!" He burst out, leaping to his feet. He'd grown to a respectable six foot two inches, and now kept his hair neat and short. Sofia saw him as her son. "I didn't do anything! Their son hated me!" 

While that was probably true, it wasn't the entire reason for the breakdown of the placement. It probably was partly Heinz's fault, but she only sighed and nodded. With the life he'd led, Heinz deserved to have someone on his side. "Alright, alright." She reassured. "One of my colleagues in the States has found you a good foster family. All I need is you to say you're willing to go there." 

Here, she remembered all over again that he  _ was  _ only fifteen. He shifted unsurely, and looked at her. "Will you come with me?" 

"Of course I will, Heinz. I'd never leave you alone in a new place like that." 

  
  



End file.
